Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Lambics: Beers Gone Wild

MANY wine lovers tend to think of beer as something monolithic, just as modern art or rap music seem all the same to those who choose not to embrace those subjects. Connoisseurs can rhapsodize for hours over the minute differences between neighboring vineyards in Morey-St.-Denis and Chambolle-Musigny, but beer? Just as long as it's cold.

To be frank, that's a position of blindness and should not inspire pride. Would you only eat meat and never try fish? We all know people like that, and we laugh at them. But people who drink only wine and won't touch beer? They're considered sophisticated. Excuse me while I chuckle.

Now, I'm not attacking preferences here, only the refusal to consider alternatives. If you have explored beer and decided it's not for you, well, I toast your open mind. But if you have exiled beers to parts unknown, I have a radical proposal: Take the time to seek out and try a few lambic beers from Belgium and tell me if these are not as complex and distinctive as many fine wines.

What makes this radical? Even many beer drinkers know little about lambic beer. It's perhaps the most unusual beer around, truly made in the old-fashioned way. It is not at all easy to find. You will most likely have to seek out a shop specializing in great beers of the world, but I assure you it is worth the effort.

Modern breweries today are generally antiseptic environments in which brewers seek absolute control over the chemistry of fermentation. You can imagine them in their lab coats, selecting the proper strains of scientifically prepared yeasts to create the precise flavors and aromas they desire. But lambic beers are made as they were centuries before Pasteur, when the process of fermentation seemed to be a miracle rather than a controlled reaction. Instead of managing fermentation, the lambic brewer leaves it to nature. Wild yeasts, along with just about anything else in the air, shepherd the brew on its path to beerhood, converting barley and wheat sugars into alcohol, producing fascinating and, dare I say, wine-like beers.

The Dining section's tasting panel recently embarked on a lambic journey. Florence Fabricant and I were joined by two guests, Tony Forder, co-publisher and editor of Ale Street News, a consumer publication, and Jason Bezmen, sommelier and manager of Cafe d'Alsace, an Alsatian restaurant on the Upper East Side that offers an extensive beer list. We tried 25 beers that call themselves lambic, and if that sounds as if I am hedging a little about these beers, it's because I am.

Traditionally, lambic is a style of wheat beer, made with a combination of malted barley and unmalted wheat. Hops are added not for the sake of bitterness, as they are in many beers, but to act as a preservative. The brew ferments in barrels, like certain examples of that other fermented beverage, and evolves into a dry, almost sour beer with a fresh, lively acidity and an appealing funkiness. As the brew ages, it mellows and takes on a rich, fruity complexity.

You rarely see straight lambics. Generally, young and aged lambics are blended, and the result is called gueuze (pronounced GURZ-uh). Blends in which the young lambic dominates tend to be almost sparkling in their pure, tart, almost smoky dry flavors and are wonderfully refreshing, not unlike a young blanc de blancs Champagne combined with some sauvignon blanc. An older gueuze develops a mild, almost transparent dry fruitiness like what you might find in a fine blanc de noirs Champagne. The mixture of older and younger lambics causes a second fermentation in the bottle, just as in Champagne, which creates its crisp carbonation.

Our No. 2 gueuze, the Lindemans Cuvée René, seemed to be very much in the aged gueuze school, with wonderful raspberry aromas that combined with a sort of earthiness. Our No. 1 gueuze, the Cantillon organic, had more of a refreshing, younger lambic element to it, detectable in its citrus edge.

An old tradition in the Senne Valley of Belgium, the center of lambic production, is to steep fruit in the beers, most often cherries to produce kriek, or raspberries to make framboise. The fruit renews the fermentation as the yeast in the brew devours the sugar in the fruit. The result is a beer of stark, penetrating dryness in which the essence of the fruit rings out in a kaleidoscope of bitter, mineral, earthy flavors.

The Cantillon Lou Pepe Kriek, an unusual vintage lambic, was fascinating. Like a good red Burgundy, it seemed to change continually in the glass. The Hanssens Oude Kriek was smooth, with perhaps a little sweetness, yet it too had a welcome complexity, as did the Drie Fonteinen, which had the distinct aroma of sour cherries and minerally, tart nuances. The Boon Framboise was well balanced between funk and fruitiness.

These traditional lambics are made with many other fruits as well. Cantillon even makes one provocatively called Vigneronne, with muscat grapes, which has a wonderful dry, tart fruitiness.

Now here's the sticky part, and the reason I hedged before in terming all these beers lambic. As in any community of passionate devotees, serious debate rages over what constitutes authentic lambic beer. This debate focuses on the most popular style, which has penetrated the beer market right down to the deli level. I'm speaking of the sweet fruit lambic beers, which often depart from the traditional methods by adding fruit juice or syrup to the brew, resulting in a sweet, sometimes cloying beer.

In making these sweet beers, some brewers are said to use prepared yeasts rather than practicing spontaneous fermentation — the benchmark of a lambic beer. Other questions arise, over which breweries pasteurize and filter their beers, also no-no's, and which actually blend only a small percentage of lambic into conventionally produced beer, rather than only using lambic beer. The vagueness of the Belgian beer regulations allows brewers to take these shortcuts, says Tim Webb, author of "Good Beer Guide to Belgium" (Gardners Books, 2005).

Photo

The Lindemans Cuvée René, a traditional lambic beer.Credit
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

To raise a glass, say, of the De Troch Apricot Chapeau, a sweet but delicious beer, is to enter a hornets' nest of tenaciously opinionated beer lovers who question whether these beers qualify as lambic. De Troch, for example, uses fruit juice to flavor its brew. Although Mr. Forder questioned the level of its sweetness, we found it tremendously appealing, with a spicy, nutty fruit flavor.

As much as we liked the apricot beer, both the Van Honsebrouck St. Louis Framboise and De Troch's Kriek Chapeau had more of a lambic character to them, with a tart core offering a counterpoint to the sweetness of the fruit. And the Cassis from Lindemans, makers of a popular framboise and kriek, which you can sometimes find in corner delis, had a balance to it that we did not find in its other sweet fruit beers.

Is there a place for these sweet brews? Of course. They can be delicious.

Should they be called lambics? I will say only that the sweet brews don't approach the complexity or character of the dry lambics, although they can certainly be enjoyed for what they are. If you think that sounds like somebody trying to avoid an internecine beer dispute, well, with such powers of perception you are clearly worthy of appreciating the nuances of a fine gueuze.

One final point: It is a lot easier and far more affordable to taste the best beers in the world than the best wines. Beers like the Cantillon Organic Gueuze are the finest examples of their style. Though $12 may sound like a lot for a bottle of beer, even a big one, not when you gauge it against the quality of most $12 bottles of wine. Tradition, terroir (if I may say that about a beer), a historical connection to brewers of the 16th century and a transcendent bottle. Who knew what $12 could buy.